This Is The World’s CHEAPEST Solar Powered Car

this is the Sono Scion and it might be the best car that never happened the brief was straightforward a simple Affordable Electric City Car covered in solar panels and designed with car sharing schemes firmly in mind the Sono looked to be the perfect car to bring cheap solar-powered transport to the masses but sadly due to a lack of investment it never saw the light of day but fear not my sons seeking utilitarian types for I found something even cheaper even simpler and just as solar powered this is the squad solar and it is quite simply the world's cheapest solar-powered electric car it is also by Design impossible to crash and I do appreciate that it looks more like a posh golf buggy than anything else that is basically what it is but it also happens to be in my opinion the future of urban transport let me show you what I mean this is the squad solar this is Brader and this is the fully charged show we know you love the fully charged show so why not come along to our Global live shows in 2023 and 2024. our next showed in the UK specifically farnborough and Harrogate to get your tickets before they sell out welcome then to the squad solar the world's smallest cheapest solar-powered electric car isn't it cute what have we got well it's dutch it's a micro car it's an L6 category micro car that's the slightly lower speed category there will be a faster L7 version there'll even be an L7 version with rear seats but for the time being we've just got this one production scheduled to begin in 2024 first they're going to start delivering in the Netherlands and then other parts of Europe and then it's going to the US that's right America are you watching this is a small car that is actually coming to you and what's the brief well like all micro cars it sort of wants to give you the best bits of a motorcycle and the best bits of the car namely small agile easy to park cheap to run but at the same time safety weatherproof heating you know a few Creature Comforts what about this particular micro car there are a lot of them at this point what makes this one worth your attention well if the Carver is the most fun one if the microlino is the most stylish if the city Transformer is the most unusual I think this might be the most practical the most spacious micro car I think this might be the micro car that is most like a car let me show you what I mean I think the first thing that jumps out to me about the exterior design of the squad solar is it's not all that narrow we've driven so many micro cars like the Carver and the city Transformer we're making it as skinny as possible has been very Central to the design Bridge help you squeeze through gaps in traffic the squad solar is still comfortably a quarter of the footprint of the average modern car but they've not gone to a great length to make it as narrow as possible instead they've gone look give you a little bit of extra width a bit of extra stability on the road more room for your solar panel more room inside for your knees and elbows and your passenger and these guys have been working closely with ride sharing companies here in the Netherlands who work with a fleet of bureaus which are these little micro cars that have been knocking about here for a long long time legally you can drive one of those at 16 here in the Netherlands and what that ride sharing company have informed squadov is that 16 year olds do have a tendency to drive them quite exuberantly and put them on their roofs so a little bit of extra width a little bit of extra stability not a bad thing when you're going to be renting these out to 16 year olds next thing you notice look at all this glass the visibility is going to be spectacular out of this vehicle there's barely anybody at all we've got a cheerful little face down here proper headlights Wing mirrors lovely metallic paint really really eye-catching design fine now let's talk about a couple of safety features that you probably wouldn't notice if I didn't Point them out so you're number one have a look at this aluminum exoskeleton this is the frame holding the car together and I love the way it's been exposed like this it's it's really the first thing that's going to hit if you crash the car in any direction great way of protecting all the glass and the solar big fan of that this has crash safety far beyond what is required for an L6 micro car it's got full crash structures front and rear as well they've really gone above and beyond with the safety on another note this is something I really really like this is such a simple clever idea can you see the way the tires both front and rear stick out just a tiny bit further than the nose and the rear bumper that is by design that means that when you're driving knows first into a parking space you don't even need to look you just drive until you crash into the curb will bounce off the curb you're in there we go approach the space turning circles still a bit prototype it will get tighter and we go in we go and oh there we go that must be the curb I'll just reverse tidy it up a little bit back into drive how far would we go nope yeah that's it I'm in my mum's been employing this parking style for uh years now around the side not much to report other than a big old door basically the entire side of the vehicle is the door they've really emphasized maximum ease of access with this vehicle they want you to be able to get in and out of it really really easily which is not the case with quite a few micro cars and then up here this is where the party happens big old solar panel they've managed to get a lot of real estate up here considering the size of the car it's almost the entire Footprints of the vehicle and you can get up to 20 kilometers of range in one day from that big solar panel that's a number they pulled from the Netherlands they didn't go to the equator they've gotten more than 30 kilometers of range in one day in parts of Spain but here in the Netherlands where it's a bit cloudy bit like England 20 km a day the average micro car by the way drives about 12 kilometers a day so you could comfortably doing the vast majority if not all of your daily driving in the squad Solar without ever having to plug in and this is quite interesting back there we've got 167 liters of boot space that's a big old boot for a micro car that goes up to 263 liters if you flatten the passenger seat by the way but actually no no boot lid no no rear hatch they've done some some testing on this the Citroen Ami is a key rival of this that doesn't have a tailgate either tailgate's very expensive to design and manufacture and what they've learned from asking customers who've pre-ordered is that most people are okay just like a new passenger door chucking their bits on the seat or folding the seat flat down and going into the boot that way it saves money and it's part of the way that they've achieved the impressively low price point of this vehicle which we'll get to in a moment down here this is where the party happens rear wheel drive this vehicle we've got two little two kilowatt Motors powering each rear wheel and then back here just under this lid I'm not allowed to show you this but there are removable swappable battery packs 1.6 kilowatt hour batteries the squad solo can take up to four of them at any one time they're kind of just like a briefcase that you pull out slot a new one back in they're not especially fast charging you either charge via the solar panels or via domestic plug socket but the beautiful thing is they're swappable and you can have lots of them so you're not that worried about charging times ideally when your battery runs out you've got another fresh one ready to slot in there foreign [Music] critiquing of this vehicle I just want to be very clear on the fact that this is a prototype I say that a lot on the channel we're very lucky people are very kind and they let us drive stuff early ahead of time before it's finished but this is really not finished quite yet they're basically going to throw the entire suspension out and start again it's nowhere near complete and there is a lot of room for improvement in the department of nvh that's an industry term that means noise vibration harshness there's quite a lot of those at the moment it's not finished yet so we're not going to charge oh we're not going to judge now let me just very quickly do my obligatory piece that I do every time I drive a micro car to talk about how right it feels driving one of these through a city center it's wonderful Chris one of the founders had this lovely expression just a moment ago and he said when you drive the squad solo you feel so much more at Harmony with the urban environment he's absolutely right this just feels so much more appropriate on these narrow city streets all of a sudden the road feels wider there's ample room for cyclists to zoom past me if they so wish it doesn't feel ridiculous or dangerous that I'm sharing a road with cyclists in the first place I mean take this look at this row that I'm on now how Dutch is this this is a cycle Lane that cars are allowed on also but it's all about the cyclist first and foremost and that big electric Ford Transit van coming that other way looks absurdly huge and ungainly going down this little road me I've got room to zigzag if I'm so inclined so we're not going to talk about handling we're not going to talk about suspension and ride comfort those things are not finished yet but we can talk about the astonishing visibility my goodness I feel like I'm outside driving this thing so much glass such great visibility in every direction frankly you hardly even need the mirrors you just turn your head and there you go there's a same level of visibility you get on a bicycle would you like to know the efficiency of this vehicle just the 12 just the 12 miles to the kilowatt hour as of the most recent tests that they've done that makes it substantially more efficient than the light year zero that these chaps previously worked on and that is of course in no small part because this vehicle is light 350 kilos it's worth remembering and this was something that the light year guys were at pains to explain to me but back when we drove that when it comes to solar powered vehicles efficiency is very very important on a good day in the Netherlands you might pull one kilowatt hours worth of energy from the Sun one kilowatt hour in my pole star is two and a half miles but in this well in this it's about 12 miles and that's what an efficient vehicle does it makes more use of the relatively small amount of power that you're drawing from the big solar panel and another thing they've done to keep this vehicle relatively efficient is not go crazy with speed what I have here is an L6 category vehicle that's the slower category of micro car top speed 45 kilometers per hour but when they upgrade this to an L7 they're not going to go to the full 90 kilometers per hour which is the legal top speed for l7s they're going to keep it to about 75 because they reckon that's enough they don't want you to go faster than that because when you double your speed you quadruple air resistance meaning efficiency goes in the toilet and what's more it just makes everything a bit more dangerous this is a very safety-minded mic for a car but you just love removable doors why don't all vehicles have removable doors what I really like about the way that Squad have gone about developing this vehicle is a lot of it has just been through offering stuff on the website to pre-orders and seeing if people take it or not so for example originally they weren't sure if they were going to do doors and then on their website they offered with doors with half doors which are kind of just like two bars or no doors at all everyone's back doors so now it has doors but they are an optional extra and you can remove them on sunny days oh yes and have a look at this interior this is about as simple as simple gets but done really really nicely inside here astonishingly low dashboard lots and lots of space for storage we've got the big boot behind me this seat lowers down you drop your shopping in the bag and again it's all a bit prototyping things aren't quite finished so for example in the future this will fold all the way flat and then when I pull this lever this will fold all the way flat and then there'll be a nice Storage Tray here and that's how you get into your boot and you get it into full cargo mode this is all a work in progress a couple other things that are set to change off the back of learnings from this prototype the dash is going to get a little bit higher because they're going to put air conditioning in the wing mirrors are going to get a little bit higher so that they are easy to see out of you know this is the process of trial and error as far as other features to talk about in here well there's not a huge amount and that's sort of the point we've got heating you need that to defog your windscreen air conditioning is going to be an optional extra as well we've a couple of cup holders we've got a nice phone holder here there will be a USBC port to charge your phone no speaker you don't need that that's excessive that makes things expensive bring your Bluetooth speaker pop it in the cup holder if you want music and plus you're only going to be driving at about 10 minutes that's sort of what it's designed for in front of me really simple digital display it shows me my speed it shows me my range it shows me how much energy I'm pulling from my solar panels at any given time easy to forget easy to forget as I sit here talking nonsense into the camera that this big panel above me is charging the car right now it's so rewarding to know that at every moment of every day you are drawing free energy from the Sun beautiful and that's about it for the interior really really impressively roomy considering the footprint of the vehicle again there will be a slightly longer version of the L7 category the faster one with a little bench seat in the back you could squeeze a couple of kids in that's about it simple isn't it [Music] should I tell you the price I've been teasing you this whole video okay here we go as of right now the starting price of the squad solar before tax will be 6250 Euro for a solar-powered Electric City car there are options that you can add to the Porsche tycan that cost more than this entire solar powered car six in a bit thousand Euro that is not bad at all but of course I think subscription Services car sharing schemes that to me is where this car makes the absolute most sense can you not just picture one of these sat on every street corner of every major European city you unlock it with your phone you jump in you zoom to where you're trying to get to and then you leave it there you don't even have to worry about plugging it in it's charging all the time and because it's got those swappable batteries people can just come around in electric vans and swap them out and put new ones in as and when necessary just like they do with electric rental bikes and scooters and Squad have had ride sharing firmly in mind throughout the development process of this vehicle they already have one eye on building in software whereby Japan unlock a squad solar with your or phone so you can access it through ride sharing apps and the future that these guys that envisage as far as ride sharing and Squad solar is autonomous versions of these vehicles which will identify where high demand areas of the town are and drive themselves there waiting to be rented by you between the solar panels the swappable batteries the Simplicity and roominess of this cabin the practicality with all the storage this just feels like natural progression for urban transportation renting one of these to get across town instead of owning a giant two and a half ton lump that sits outside of your house 95 of the time doesn't that just make so much more sense [Music] so initial thoughts on the squad solar based on this very early Drive of this very early prototype well look our love of micro cars here at fully charged show is well documented and breaking news fitting them with swappable batteries and solar panels just makes them way better and I love the No Frills design brief of this particular micro car I love this idea of look we're not trying to make something fancy or fast we're just trying to make the best way to get from A to B in a city with a mate and some bags and I truly think that's what this is It's insanely easy to get in and out of the visibility is outrageously good it's simple to drive it's basically impossible to crash I can just see these on every street corner of every major city in Europe tomorrow and I think it will take to them so quickly because they don't look alien they just look like little golf buggies the more of these we have on the road the less cars we have on the road the better our roads get not just for drivers but for pedestrians cyclists babies getting bit so boxy but you get the points these make cities better and that's why I want to see them everywhere so there we go Squad solar wish them every luck and success please make sure to like And subscribe but if you have been thank you for watching

Channel: Fully Charged Show

Views: 400,884

Keywords: sono sion, solar powered, renewable energy sources, renewable energy technology, sono sion update, solar car race, solar powered car project

Id: TYroDMTLVt4

Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023